One such idea that I keep revisiting is how to make the gmenu2x GUI more versatile. So this time I thought, perhaps I can do it from outside the box. Maybe I can make some scripted modal dialogs that could launch from gmenu2x, but run outside of gmenu2x and simply display over it temporarily. Or maybe we could find a use for popup notifications that post themselves over gmenu2x temporarily.
So I grabbed a few small example programs that open /dev/fb0 and write directly to the screen. And that's where I am right now. I can save the gmenu2x screen, write over part of it, and then restore it when I'm done. Not too exciting, but lotsa potential, especially if I pull in the fgui code for some nice looking widgets. Fgui makes for a nice fit because it's only requirements are a pair of get and put_pixel functions, so it's easy to graft onto any sort of graphical backend.
With any luck, I'll have an actual dialog screenshot before the snow melts.
Update April 2
And there it is...
Check out that shiny new icon for the ziptuner. Pretty sweet eh?
Ok, it's not an actual dialog, but it is a small chunk of the fgui demo program -- reworked with /dev/fb0 as the backend instead of the original sdl backend. The new backend lets me pop it up over the gmenu2x display and tinker with the controls. There may still be a few patches of snow left in the shadows beneath the trees, so I think I'll call this a success.
It'd be even better if it used the /dev/fb1 overlay screen so I could display the popup with no worries about contention with gmenu2x screen updates. Unfortunately there appears to be some bugs in the PXA video driver that make the overlay less than optimal for my purposes. Perhaps I can do a workaround someday for the overlay, but first I want to try and make what I've got do something useful.
